Chapter 3

Chapter 3
The chapter where I start to find out about the secret life of my husband,
And where I begin to track the modern day Casanova.

Matthew, my late husband, had the ability to compartmentalize his life, as if locking each section into a different room in his brain. His life’s work, so important to him, could be locked up as soon as his apartment key hit our front door and he entered the front door to our flat, at that moment, once more, he became entirely my man. Once inside, he would lavish attention upon me as if he had just gone to the corner newsstand for a paper instead of working twelve to fourteen hours at the office.
Although many men have this ability, Matthew had honed, through years of diligent differentiation, this skill into a way of life. As he was approaching his forty-eighth birthday, I noted that the walls he’d created between the different aspects of his-self had become rigid, tough and hard, and this could cause schizophrenic like confusion when he became trapped between compartments, or say the different parts of him-self were in conflict.
For instance, in the morning, when he was trying to decide what shirt to wear he would often take out two different shirts and try to put them both on at the same time, as if the were two or more people struggling to decide which shirt to wear
“Matt, what are you doing.”
“I don’t know”, he said in frustration with one shirt on his right arm and another shirt on his left arm.
“Here let me help you,” and I tried to take the shirt off his left arm, but he struggled away from me.
“No, not that one,” he said.
“But you can’t wear black with a navy suit,” I said.
But, he’d continued to dress, and went to work like that, with a navy suit and black shirt. What was happening to the man I married, I wondered.
One day I was shocked when he wanted to go with me to pick up a few things at Fairway Markets, on Broadway. While shopping he directed the cart to the snack area and as we rolled down the aisle he snatched a bag of cheese puffs.
“What are you getting those for?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“I’ll put them back.”
“No,” he said, covering the bag with his left hand, “we better buy them.”
He didn’t seem anxious, or defensive, or upset; something inside of him wanted the cheese puffs.
Later I found him working at his computer and saw that he was eating the cheese puffs. I asked him if he was enjoying them and he said, No, that he didn’t care for them. But he ate them all.
Yes I knew that Matthew was fight through demons of his own construction. I tried to get him help, but the walls he constructed were far stronger then anything medicine or couciling could tear down. He was found by doctors to be in excellent health, though the strange battles within kept up.
I did not guess that all this time the strongest wall he had construct was surely the wall between him and me. You see, Matthew was a lier. A very good one, so good in fact that he barely had to lie to deceive; like that poor Japanese bride that he seduced.
He seduced her by suggesting things, and directed her in a way in while she was more likely to react in a certain way. The only thing he directly lied about was his name. He never even said that he wasn’t married. When she asked him if he was married he responded, “It would be wrong of us being together like this if I was married, now wouldn’t it?” Throwing guilt back at her as if to say, you don’t think that I am that type of person, Do you?
But he was that type of person. Though looking at his darkly handsome face you might never guess that to be the case. But, Oh, how he could lie; sometime without actually saying a word …

… three days after Matthew’s funeral Sandra returned to her New York apartment from a weekend visiting her sister in Virginia. She had left town to escape the looks of her friends and neighbors. Even when they didn’t talk to her, they still looked at her in a accusing way. Like the police had looked at her when they asked, “Are you sure you never heard of a Mr. Yamasaki? He certainly seems to have heard of your husband. “ But no, she’d never heard of him before.
Sandra and Mathew lived on 105th St. between Broadway and West End Ave. in a huge beautiful building on the north side of the street.
Sandra had always loved the Upper West End, ever since she had first come to New York as a college student in the early seventies. It was here she met Matthew; it was here that she settled down with their life, their friends and with Matthew LeBrown’s secret life.
Standing in the doorway to he husband’s home office she noted the scent of lemon polish, his favorite. Two tan leather chairs faced the free form rosewood desk. The office had be customized to Matthew’s desires, and furnished with curios he’d and Sandra had acquired on their travels; earth toned vases, blue and green glass bowls decorated the shelves and credenza with back lighting to illuminate their sticking accent colors. A large blue checked basket weave rug hung on one wall. Running her fingers over the things on his desk; an ebony letter opener from an African leper colony, his black fountain pen, a pen well full of black Indian ink, his green felt blotter, the portable Kaypro 386 computer he carried with him everywhere.
Dumping out a manila envelope that contained his personal effects, she scanned the keys, business card holder, money clip containing money stained with his blood, the elephant skin wallet he’d gotten during the war. She’d come in to find his insurance papers from the term policy he maintained, but now that she was here she could surround herself with him again. Parts of him. Enough to surround herself. Pretend he were still here. It wasn’t time to let go. That would be for later. Now was a time to fill herself, overflow herself with him, so she could remember every minute, every part, even the parts she didn’t know yet.
After a half hour she became tired of the silence and turned on the sound system. The Bose Acoustimass speakers instantly filled the room from their small cubes. It startled her, for the news came on and the newsman sounded so real, and so close to her, as if he were standing in the room, but this was not possible she knew, it was merely the combination of her nerves and the accuracy of the sound system. There was a sound clip from President Bush, a sound bite, “a kinder and gentler nation” he assured her audience. And the she noticed the large walnut organizer under the desk. Funny, she must have seen it before, she thought, but she couldn’t remember it having a lock on it. Not a flimsy lock, a substantial burnished-steel lock.
Rolling the organizer from under the desk, noticing how heavy and well built it felt, yet it slid easily. She then sat in Matthew’s desk chair. The lid was definitely lock so she rummaged through the desk looking for the key, but it wasn’t there. Where would he piut it, then she noted his personal keys, the ones she had dumped out of the envelope. She knew he hated carrying key, and there were only four keys on the ring, but sure enough, one of the keys worked on the organizer. The ring contained only four keys; the house key, the keys to his Jaguar, this office key and this key. She opened up the organizer and saw it full with hanging files. Sitting on top of the files was a journal which had been placed there as if Matthew had been in a hurry, and had not had time to put the book away properly. Under the journal was a yellow writing pad with notes, lines and drawings across it.
Sandra flipped open the journal and saw on the front page, in large scripted letters sat a word: QWERTYUIOP. She had no idea what that meant, though she knew Matthew had been good at puzzles. Flipping through the book she saw that the book had been written in a numeric code. Lines of numbers filled the pages. The numers were in two colums on each page. They were written in black ink, presumably from his quil pen and his ink well. Every once in a while there appeared to be a title of heading. This was also written in numbers, but was written in red ink.
There was no punctuation, and no seperation between the number, as if each journal was the wirtting of one long neat number which went on, some times for page after page.
Flipping to the back of the book there was a page for names and addresses. There seemed to be five names on this page, but they too were written out in numbers with no seperation be tween words. The line where phone numbers appered had almost a humbers numbers. What had Matthews been doing, Sandra wondered. She realized that her heart had been beating rapidly, and set the journal on the desk. She need a cup of tea.
As she stood up, she realized that the radio was still on and newsman was still talking about President Bush. “A moment rich with promise”, she heard, and then the words, “a force for good.” just before she reached the radio and snapped off the power. Before going to the kitchen she picked up the yellow pad that had been uder the journal and looked at the marking across the surface. A crude drawing of a wedding cake adorned one border, there was a line down the middle of the page with the same strange numbering code going half way down the right hand side of the sheet.
The left side of the sheet was writing in ancient type writing. Matthew was of Lebanese descent, but the writing was not an arabic for. And yet, still Sandra knew it looked familier. And then she remembered. She went to her study and opened up a picture album from a trip to Alexandria, Eygypt. Sure enough, the lettering was similar, so it must be a form of Coptic, she thought. Where would he have learned Coptic, she wondered, maybe in the army. Mathew had been incredible with codes, numbers and languages all his life. She remembered in the army, for two years after the war he had spent time in something know as the Army intelligence. He was never able to tell her what he did during this period, but she knew some of the people that he had meet, and they had gone one to work with psychology and cuciling. A few that he still talked too worked as consultants, and ran marketing firms.
She walked to her kitchen and placed the new Viking range and watch the flames dance on the copper surface of the tea pot. She looked at the yellow pad again, not as an ex-wife this time, but as the scholar she had trained herself to become. One the bottom of the sheet were some pencil marks that had been erased. She tipped the page and looked at the writing closly. Scewfas, it appeared to say, no, screwfast, screwfast and the letters a-l-t. Screwfast alt, then almost on the edge of the tablet, very lightly was the name Casanova. What did that mean? Was it part of a message, or the complete message? The whistle started to blown on the tea pot, steam sputtered from the spout. She would be going to her office at the university today after all, she thought, and she knew who she would talk too about this…

…Matthew may have been fighting demons, but there was one thing for sure, he had been hiding something. I felt stupid to have been fooled by him.
Matthew had been shot down in his office by a man that my husband didn’t know. I thought that maybe the yellow pad and journal could help to tell me more about his secrets.
For a second I wondered, Should I call the police about all this. No, not yet. There was one thing for sure, Matthew had been hiding something from me, and not just for days, but months and maybe years. I had a right to find out what it was all about. Matthew had been lying to me about this, if not with words, at least I knew that he had been lying in his heart. Matthew had lied in his heart. And exactly what kind of person was he to be able to do that kind of thing?

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